


Alternia and its Inhabitants, Namely Trolls

by Anonymous



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams, Homestuck
Genre: Culture, Gen, Hitchhiker's Guide, Romance, Trolls, galaxy, headcanons, intergalactic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trolls are a unique species, with many quirks and oddities that go with. An entry for trolls in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Don't panic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alternia and its Inhabitants, Namely Trolls

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [KatAddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatAddy/pseuds/KatAddy) in the [homestuck_meme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/homestuck_meme) collection. 



> Okay, so, not really sure what I'm getting myself into here. I have to say, I don't know if I can really live up to the expectation of humour, but I'll do my best. (Also, I don't know why it's not showing it, but I'm kandyblood. Not Anonymous. That is all.)  
>  **Prompt:**
> 
> okay this is just a dumb thing but could someone write an entry for the guide for Trolls, troll culture, troll romance, maybe even anatomy, or any other head canons about trolls as a species you might have! The funnier the better!

Trolls are an endlessly fascinating race that has survived for millenia on the planet Alternia. Alternia is very similar to Earth in its mineral composition and size, but there ends the similarities. The oceans on Alternia are far smaller than those of Earth, and the landmasses are much more lush and green. One might even say that they are akin to the jungles of Algendorf, a planet in the outer rim of the WR4398S quadrant alpha.

The trolls themselves are much more engaging than the planet on which they live. Trolls are an inherently violent race, though not as much as, say, the Malibarqa. Their use of the 'survival of the fittest' theory is quite agressive and not remotely pleasant. They start out as grubs, created by the Mother Grub through a slurry of genetic material. Each one must literally fight its way out of the caverns in which it is born, fending off challenges along the way. The weak ones get picked off rather quickly, and those who are ledt are chosen by creatures called lusi. Lusi are attracted to trolls based on their scent, which depends on their blood colour.

Let's give you some perspective.

A rust blood is the lowest, having reddish- brown blood. These trolls often have powerful psychic abilities, as do brown bloods and mustard bloods. Though these colours are generally speaking accurate descriptions, troll blood can have many hues and shades. The low bloods (those with psychic abilities) are treated as far less than the general population. There have been theories that high bloods use them to control everyone else through psychic interferance, but those are just rumours. The middle class is made up of olive, lime, and jade bloods. Lime bloods were long ago driven to extinction by the rest of the race, for powers that are still unknown. If any are still alive, they're very good at hiding. Jade bloods are an extremely rare, all-female blood caste, meant for one purpose: to prepare and care for the Mother Grub. These trolls are often gentle and caring in disposition, much contrasting to the vast majority of their species, because of the motherly instinct to care for the bearer of the race's children. The aristocrats, teal, cerulean, and indigo bloods, often have political significance and status. These trolls are usually conservative, tending to stick to the traditional views of the Hemospectrum (the social hierarchy that is based on blood colour). And finally, the highbloods are purple and violet bloods. Purple bloods are somewhat anomolies, as they live on land but have seadwelling lusi. Some believe that purple bloods were forced onto land to subjugate the lower bloods directly. Violet bloods, however, are seadwellers, and often develop homocidal tendencies. One must stop and think about the advisability of making one's higher-ups increasingly vicious with status, but it seems to have worked so far. And then there's Tyrian bloods- they automatically become the heirs to the throne and gain the most dangerous lusus of all. Tyrian bloods, though they will never admit it, are a controlled genetic mutation meant to keep infighting for the throne to a minimum. The young Tyrian blood, who lives in the sea, is much too busy making sure that their lusus is fed and happy so it doesn't wipe out the whole planet to focus on gaining the throne. The current Imperious [insert descriptive noun here] has their chance to make sure everything is in order before the new ruler comes to beat the crap out of them. It's an age-old, time-honoured tradition for the young troll to challenge and fight their older counterpart, but everyone knows that's a load of hooey. The winner is always quite predictable. One last genetic mutation, which is far rarer and not at all purposeful, is the occurence of candy red blood. No one envies the poor chump who is unfortunate enough to inherit this, because unless they're the most clever, paranoid troll ever, they are going to get killed in their sleep.

Once a troll moves on from this, their lusus will help them construct a hive. The higher a troll is on the Hemospectrum, the more means and materials they have to make their hive, which is where they'll be living for most (if not all) of their lives. This forces lower bloods to be more creative with the way that they construct their hives to max out their comfortability and space. This is a little backwards, if you think about it, because shouldn't the leaders be the ones who are forced to develop critical thinking skills early in life? And wouldn't that give the low bloods an opportunity to gain the intelligence they need to overthrow the system? But hey, I'm not in charge. Just seems like that would be an important thing to think about.

Now, moving on to troll romance and reproduction. The romantic systems of humans, cherubs, Vogons, and any other species you probably care to name pale in comparison to the complexity and vast confusion that is troll romance.

They basically have card suits for quadrants.

That's not enough information? Well, fine. I was about to tell you more anyway.

The first quadrant is the flushed quadrant, or the Heart quadrant. This is the closest thing that trolls have to the concept of love among other species. It's based off of pity. Two trolls in the flushed quadrant together are Matesprits, and they almost always bond for life. Trolls tend to get very depressed and unresponsive if their Matespritship is cut short for any reason, and though it is possible to re-kindle this type of relationship with another troll, it is very difficult. This is one of the two quadrants that are expected to mate and provide genetic material in buckets to drones that come by to collect. Once a troll reaches maturity, around eight sweeps, they are expected to fill buckets. If they don't, they are brutally slaughtered and their guts are used to polish prison gates. No need to sugar coat it. Matesprits rely on each other for support, food, money, pleasure, and company. Picture two newly-minted school-day sweethearts and you get Matesprits for almost the entirety of their relationship.

Now for the second quadrant, which is the pale or Diamond quadrant. Basically, this quadrant is when two trolls lean on each other for moral support and feelings jams. What are feelings jams, you may ask? It's exactly what it sounds like. They have nice, cute little heart-to-hearts (or diamond-to-diamonds, depending on how you look at it) and discuss their feelings and emotions. This is a good way for trolls not to be overwhelmed by the inordinate amounts of hormones and trouble that they go through in their childhood. This quadrant is pretty much just a chance for the species to go through terrible, horrible things, and for everyone to be fine with it. This is also based off pity, and is more likely to span across the blood castes than other relationships. Trolls in these relationships are called Moirales.

The third quadrant is much more rare and much harder to fill than the rest. The ashen or Clubs quadrant requires  _three_ trolls instead of just two. Two of the trolls are usually having conflicting feelings about each other, bouncing back and forth between intense hate and strong pity. A third troll is on between the two, helping them to sort out their feelings and generally keeping them from ripping each other apart. Like a high-stress Moirale for two trolls at once. Needless to say, not many of these Auspicisisms exist.

The fourth and final quadrant is the caliginous or Spades quadrant. It is based off of hate, but also mutual respect for one another as opponents. Kismesises, as they're called, physically fight each other in order to relieve the natural violence that trolls tend to possess. Though they often draw blood and are much rougher with each other than normal everyday trolls, the goal of a Kismesisitude is never for either party to end up dead or incapacitated. This quadrant is best-suited to trolls who have a singular passion or obsession with something, as that obsessiveness often translates to honed fighting senses and unpredictable, exciting attacks. This quadrant is the main reason why other alien species are scared off from the planet, because as soon as you observe a pair of Kismesises going at it you tend to rethink your decision to befriend their species as a whole.

Trolls don't give a damn about gender, making them a pansexual race. Though trolls can reproduce asexually, they tend to prefer to have a partner to help them with the creation of their genetic material. Not going into any more detail on that, so moving on now.

Trolls have grey skin, which is much thicker than human skin. They look a lot like humans, being ugly bags of mostly water. Their hair is naturally black, though trolls have been known to dye their hair, and their eyes are yellow. As soon as they become mature, their eyes begin to turn the colour of their blood from the pupil out. This process does not fully complete itself until they become sexually active. In short, trolls really can't hide it if they're still virgins. Another aspect of trolls is their horns. Used both to fight off enemies and sense their way through the dark caverns in which they were born, horns tend to be sharp and large. Tyrian and candy bloods are exceptions, Tyrians possibly because they'll really never have to use their horns; candies because, well, the less defence a mutation has the better. Horns are very sensitive, especially towards the base, and can be stimulated during the reproduction process. Horns progress in colour from reddish orange at the bottom, fading into brighter orange and then into a golden yellow. They can be any shape or size, regardless of the troll's blood colour.

Each troll has a symbol that is used to identify it personally; trolls have the same symbol as their ancestors from long ago. This is often refered to as 'bl69d and sym69l' as homage to the Sufferer, who was a mutant blood that completely reformed the attitude towards caste differences on the Hemospectrum.

Trolls have a brilliant system that vastly improves the survival rate of the species, but is absolutely rubbish for individuals. It has once been said that in order for a troll to be truly happy, they must either undergo serious transspecies surgery or end up dead. This is debatable, as the few trolls who have all four quadrants filled describe themselves as content, but that might or might not be because the Imperial Drones forced them to when they were taking the survey.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, there it is. This was my first prompt fill, so I hope it went well. Might fill more in the future. Was it funny enough? Maybe? I sort of took on a more intellectual approach for this one.  
> -kandyblood


End file.
